The Mower Gang is hosting a Mow-A-Thon unlike any you have ever seen. For 24 hours straight we'll mow as much parkland as we can.

Mower Gang leader Tom Nardone launched the group 3 years ago, after budget cuts forced the city to “close” more than 70 parks. But those parks aren’t really “closed” at all.

“They don’t barricade them, they just stop mowing them,” Nardone says. So he decided to launch the Mower Gang, and it’s grown over time.

Nardone says the whole task can seem overwhelming, but the results are immediately gratifying.

The playground in O'Shea Park in Detroit.

Credit MowerGang / Facebook

“A lot of places we mow have parks and playgrounds,” Nardone says. “So as soon as you’re done mowing the tall grass, people come out and play.”

Part of the Gang tackled Riverside Park in southwest Detroit on Saturday afternoon. That’s another park that’s been “closed”—due to environmental contamination—but is still heavily used, especially for fishing on the river.

“This here is a beautiful park,” says Leon Newton. He’s a neighborhood guy who came down to lend the Mower Gang a hand.

Newton calls Riverside Park’s state of disrepair one of his “pet peeves.” He says it forces the kids who live next door to play in the street, rather than at the park.

“They got a playground over there that’s supposed to be for kids to use, but they got weeds as tall as me and you put together,” Newton says.

Newton says he’d occasionally come by to pick up trash at the park, but nobody from the city would come by and pick it up. The Mower Gang is unofficially sanctioned by the city, and trucks do come by to pick up the waste after they clean up a park.

“So this group here, hey…I got to take my hat off to them,” Newton says. “It’s people like this who keep the city running.”